Somewhere.

"Try not to be overwhelmed by how massive it all is, I think, choose your area and have a go," she said.

Taken along to social justice rallies as a child, Rawson was raised to think about the big picture, other people and other species.

Now she tackles such issues through the fiction and non-fiction she creates from her Tasmanian home.

"Often there'll be a thing that is bothering me that I'll want to write about, and I'll often write about it a lot of different ways a lot of times," she said.

"So it might be in a short story, it might be an essay, it might be a novel."

IN OTHER NEWS:

Rawson will be part of next week's Write Around The Murray program, with the annual Border literary festival turning into a free online event in response to COVID-19 restrictions.

While not downplaying the pandemic's impact, she said the chance to participate in new virtual activities had been a silver lining of 2020.

"I hope after all this people will still think, 'Oh, maybe we could do part of this online'," she said.

During the five-day program, Rawson will discuss the human toll of climate change with author Paddy Manning and explore the merging of science, imagination and world events with Chris Flynn, Laura Jean McKay and James Bradley.

The festival's short story award will be announced on September 10, with 12 entries from NSW, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia and ACT shortlisted.

MORE FESTIVAL NEWS:

Rawson, who also works for Tasmanian Land Conservancy, admits to some frustration over Australia's environmental policies and priorities, with "every day a new day to be outraged and annoyed by something".

"We're constantly degrading even our minor efforts to protect Australia's environment, it just doesn't seem to be something that people care about very much ... I mean people who are in power," she said.

"We have such an incredible country here... our amazing animals we have that aren't anywhere else, incredible plant species that don't exist anywhere else.

"It feels like something that we should be proud of and supporting and that should be part of our patriotism about Australia and yet, not so much."

Having studied journalism and previously worked for The Conversation, Rawson turned to creative writing about 2000, influenced by "self-starters" around her.

"It was just being in a different atmosphere of people where it felt like it was possible to just try something, even if it was dumb and just give it a go," she said.

"The journey's the best bit in writing, discovering what you can do and things you can create and making whole worlds from just the inside of your head.

"It's an incredible thing to do, what a power!"